


Relationship Flags

by Lirillith



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Normal High School, Background Poly, F/M, background Komaeda/Hinata if you squint, or Komaeda/Hinata/Nanami
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-07
Packaged: 2018-03-06 08:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3128168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lirillith/pseuds/Lirillith
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She still can't get the hang of dating sims.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Relationship Flags

**Author's Note:**

> _Normal_ high school may not be quite right - Komaeda's still got his weird luck and Nanami's still SHSL Gamer - but happy high school AU, definitely.

Chiaki feels somewhat vindicated even as she's incredibly frustrated. She has a boyfriend, a real live human boyfriend. So it's not that she doesn't get along with _people._ She almost has two boyfriends, if you count Komaeda. 

She's not sure Komaeda counts. She likes gaming with him — his luck makes up for skill, so he's both unpredictable and sometimes a challenge — but he doesn't like to waste his good luck on video games, and besides, he's more Hajime's boyfriend than hers. If he's even Hajime's boyfriend. He'll make comments about spiriting Hajime away to their love nest, which seems to mean the dorms in general, and then say they're just friends. 

Hajime says he's just messing around, but he keeps spending time with Komaeda, and she's pretty sure she'd try to avoid a guy who made that kind of comment if she didn't like him back. So it seems possible he's just being tsundere, even if she's not totally sure tsunderes are real. Komaeda may or may not be her boyfriend by the transitive property, but she and Hajime keep holding hands when they're out together and she's awake, so that's at least one boyfriend.

And yet this stupid otome game is still beyond her. It has to be the way the games work and not the way she works; she can navigate real people, after all. She's gotten all the endings for two different routes and is now working on a third guy — which means she's played some parts of this game ten times — and yet she's still only gotten the good endings by trial and error. In fact, she's only ended up on certain characters' routes by trial and error. And she has no idea how she accidentally romanced the teacher the first time around. You'd think teachers would be more of a challenge, not less.

Then again, she's not totally sure how she romanced Hajime, either. "What was the first thing I did that raised your flag?" she asks him

He blinks a lot more at that question than she thinks is really necessary. "Is that some kind of euphemism, or is it a gaming term?"

"It's a gaming term." Oh. That means he doesn't know the definition. "Your romance flag. How did I initiate your route? When did you stop thinking of me as just a friend?"

"Oh. So it kind of is a euphemism too," he says. "Um... I'm not totally sure? Um." Now he's starting to get embarrassed. "I liked your smile." 

"But it wasn't anything I said?" 

"I don't remember exactly?" And then, just like she feared, he asks, "What brought this on?"

She frowns at her handheld. "I still don't get this genre at _all._ "

"You have a pretty cute pout, too," he says. 

She sighs. "Maybe you're on _my_ route instead of the other way around. Which means..." Which means he was the one who'd triggered her flags, instead of the other way around. Was it something he'd said? Something he'd done? The first time he brought her an old Game Boy peripheral, she'd been very impressed and pleasantly surprised. She hadn't expected him to be thinking of her, or to recognize it as something she'd value and not just random electronic junk. 

But by then, she'd already taken notice of him. He listened when she talked about games, and tried to make sense of all her gaming references, more than most people did. He asked her to explain things when he really didn't understand, but he put in some effort first. And he took her seriously without ever assuming she was joking.

"Chiaki?" He waves his hand in front of her face. 

"Hm?" 

"I thought you fell asleep!"

"No. Just thinking. I think I get it now." 

"Get what?"

She exits to the title screen. Forget her mountain of save files. She wants a fresh start. "I don't know if it'll help when it comes to getting the ending I want, though," she says. "Does either of us have a tragic past?"

"I think my parents would call the tuition here tragic, but that's not what you mean." 

"No." Oh, he'd asked a question. "I think maybe I know how to pick a character's route now."

"That's... good?"

"Yes, it is." 

"Okay," he says. "Great?"

"Yeah. Now I can try the grouchy guy with the ahoge. I hope this works."

"Good luck," he says. She starts the game up, and sets the text to fast-forward through the introductory scenes, before she looks up to acknowledge that. She expects him to be back at work on his English homework, but he's watching her, his face resting on his hand. The way his hand pushes his face up also stretches his slight smile a little out of shape, but not to where it's unrecognizable.

"Thanks," she says, and smiles back at him. "I'll do my best."


End file.
